This is the first page of Beria's memo to Josef Stalin proposing
the execution of Polish officers, gendarmes, police, military settlers,
and others. It was accepted by the
Politoburo on March 5, 1940, and countersigned by "I.V. Stalin,
K. Voroshilov, A. Mikoyan, V. Molotov."

The order to shoot 22,000 Poles

Top Secret

Central Committee of the All Union Communist Party

To Comrade Stalin

In the USSR NKVD prisoner-of-war camps of the western regions of
Ukraine and Belorussia, there are at present a large number of former
officers of the Polish Army, former workers in
the Polish Police and intelligence organs, members of Polish
nationalist c-r [counter-revolutionary] parties, participants in
exposed c-r insurgent organizations, refugees, and others. They
are all sworn enemies of Soviet power, filled with hatred for
the Soviet system of government.

Prisoner-of-war officers and police in the camps are attempting to
continue their c-r work and are conducting anti-Soviet agitation.
Each one of them is just waiting to be released in order to be able
to enter actively into the battle against Soviet power.

The NKVD organs in the western oblasts [provinces] of Ukraine
and Belorussia have exposed several c-r insurgent organisations.
In all these c-r organizations, an active guiding role is played by
former officers of the former Polish Army and former police and gendarmes.

Among the detained refugees and those who have violated the state border,
a significant number of individuals who are participants in c-r
espionage and insurgent organisations have also been uncovered.

The prisoner-of-war camps are holding a total (not counting the
soldiers and the NCOs) of 14,736 former officers, officials, landowners,
police, gendarmes, prison guards, settlers [i.e., Polish army veterans
given grants of land in the border area], and intelligence agents, who
are more than 97 percent Polish by nationality.

In the prisons of the western oblasts of Ukraine and Belarussia a
total of 18,632 arrested people (including 10,685 Poles) are held,
including:

former officers

1,207

former police, intelligence agents, and gendarme

5141

spies and saboteurs

347

former land owners, factory owners, and officials

465

members of various c-5 and insurgent organisations and of various
c-r elements

5,345

refugees

6127

Based on the fact that they are all hardened, irremediable enemies of
Soviet power, the NKVD USSR believes it is essential:

I. To direct the USSR NKVD to:

1) examine the cases of the 14,700 former Polish officers, officials,
landowners, police, intelligence agents, gendarmes, settlers, and
prison guards who are now in the prisoner-of-war camps

2) and also examine the cases of those
who have been arrested and are in the prisons of western oblasts of
Ukraine and Belorussia, numbering 11,000, members of various c-r espionage
and sabotage organizations, former landowners, manufaturers, former
Polish officers, officials, and refugees, [and] using the special procedure,
apply to them the supreme punishment, [execution by] shooting.

II. Examine [these] cases without calling in the arrested men and
without presenting the charges, the decisions about the end of the
investigation, or the documents of indictment, according to the
following procedure:

a) against individuals in the prisoner-of-war camps on the basis
of information presented by the USSR NKVD UPV

b) against individuals who have been arrested on the basis of information
from files presented by the UkSSR NKVD and the BSSR NKVD

III. Assign the examination of cases and the carrying out of decisions
to a troika consisting of Comrades Beria, Merkulov,
Kobulov, and Bashtakov.